Conference Report on H.R. 4520, American Jobs Creation Act of 2004

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the rule, and I also want to commend the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas), for his excellent work, the work of the Committee on Rules and also to commend the conference committee for their good work on this issue.

This is a fair rule. It is a good conference report. And it is time for us to take action on this. The issue that we have before us is about tax fairness, it is about equity, and it is about jobs growth. Mr. Speaker, as I was listening to my colleague from across the aisle talk about tax cuts, you would think that they think that the tax cuts are bad, that reducing the tax burden on the American citizens is a bad thing to do. I am here to tell you from my constituents in Tennessee, reducing that burden is a very good thing to do. It is something that the jobs growth bill does. And so I do rise to enthusiastically support it.

There is a provision in this bill that is of great importance not only to my constituents in Tennessee but to 55 million Americans. As we were hearing from the chairman, he mentioned this was help for farmers, help for Main Street, and help for Main Street is what I want to talk about, because restoring the deductibility of sales tax to the Federal income tax filing for those of us that are in States that do not have a State income tax, that choose to fund our State governments by sales tax, that is an issue of tax fairness.

It is also a way to help out Main Street and provide an economic boost that is truly needed in our communities. This is a provision also that is very important to thousands of female-owned small businesses: increasing expensing, leasehold provisions, deductibility of sales tax that provides more traffic on Main Street for our thousands of female-owned businesses. This is a very positive move.